iCloud Photos - Need help restoring photos!

[TL24]

So I was under the impression that whatever I deleted from the Photos app on my MBP would not be delete in iCloud since I have "Optimize Mac Storage" enabled. Well I deleted all the photos and also deleted them from "Recently Deleted" and now all my photos/videos in iCloud have been deleted. Am I not understanding this setting correctly? Why would it delete everything in iCloud when the photos/videos were downloaded and stored locally on my MBP to begin with?

I feel like a total idiot at this point, I cannot believe I screwed this up this bad. My photos and videos of my family means everything to me, I'm thankful all they were also backed up previously via Google Photos (full resolution) but I'm so ***** bummed out by this, is there a way for Apple to restore these photos/videos? I know they still have these photos stored on their servers and I've got a call scheduled with them later today to figure this out but I was wondering if there was a 3rd party app I could use to do this myself instead.

 

[0128672]

If it's been less than 30 days, you might want to check the Photos app Recently Deleted album.

"When you delete a photo or video from your Photos app, it also deletes from your iCloud Photos and iCloud storage. You can recover your photos and videos from the Recently Deleted album for 30 days."

If your iCloud Photos aren't syncing to your device - Apple Support

If your photos or videos won't sync to iCloud Photos on your device, learn how to check the status of your photo library and what to do if you see a status message.

support.apple.com

 

[nicho]

If it's been less than 30 days, you might want to check the Photos app Recently Deleted album.

"When you delete a photo or video from your Photos app, it also deletes from your iCloud Photos and iCloud storage. You can recover your photos and videos from the Recently Deleted album for 30 days."

If your iCloud Photos aren't syncing to your device - Apple Support

If your photos or videos won't sync to iCloud Photos on your device, learn how to check the status of your photo library and what to do if you see a status message.

support.apple.com

OP said he took the extra step "and also deleted them from "Recently Deleted" and now all my photos/videos in iCloud have been deleted"

So he won't be able to do that.

 

[0128672]

OP said he took the extra step "and also deleted them from "Recently Deleted" and now all my photos/videos in iCloud have been deleted"

So he won't be able to do that.

Thanks, I completely missed that.

 

[-Gonzo-]

Yeah Optimised Storage just leaves a lower quality thumbnail which downloads when selected.
If you delete that thumbnail you also delete its iCloud counterpart.
Via iOS you get a popup warning when you delete something:

When you delete from the recently deleted folder you get another popup with a warning, do you not see similar on the Mac?

 

[nicho]

Yeah Optimised Storage just leaves a lower quality thumbnail which downloads when selected.
If you delete that thumbnail you also delete its iCloud counterpart.
Via iOS you get a popup warning when you delete something:

When you delete from the recently deleted folder you get another popup with a warning, do you not see similar on the Mac?

The Mac photos app gives exactly the same warnings.

 

[TL24]

Yeah Optimised Storage just leaves a lower quality thumbnail which downloads when selected.
If you delete that thumbnail you also delete its iCloud counterpart.
Via iOS you get a popup warning when you delete something:

When you delete from the recently deleted folder you get another popup with a warning, do you not see similar on the Mac?

Can't believe I missed that, I feel like an idiot now.

I'll see what Apple can do, I highly doubt they'll restore over 7k photos and videos for me though. At least I still have all of them backed up on Google Photos (thank god).

 

[TL24]

Apple comes in with the WIN again.

They were able to restore all my photos/videos back into my "Recently Deleted" folder in iCloud for me to restore them back as needed.

Life is good again and this is why I'll always be an Apple customer, great tech and even better customer service!

 

[Expos of 1969]

Glad that you have your photos back and good for Apple assisting you promptly. But don’t beat yourself up for making the mistake. Despite the warning messages, iCloud is not the easiest thing to understand and the optimisation and other choices are not intuitive as Apple claimed things were in the past. Many people get confused with the poor wording and concepts which contradict the “it just works” mantra from Apple’s more customer focussed days.

 

[TL24]

Glad that you have your photos back and good for Apple assisting you promptly. But don’t beat yourself up for making the mistake. Despite the warning messages, iCloud is not the easiest thing to understand and the optimisation and other choices are not intuitive as Apple claimed things were in the past. Many people get confused with the poor wording and concepts which contradict the “it just works” mantra from Apple’s more customer focussed days.

Yeah, I consider myself pretty damn knowledgable with iOS and MacOS but one simple mistake just deleted everything. Thank god Apple was able to assist me here, I seriously would have cried if I didn't have my media backed up in Google Photos too lol

Thanks guys!

 

[Razeus]

Just remember, iCloud Photo Library is not a backup service. It's a sync service. Allows keep your photos backed upsomewhere else.